Public Art: Refreshing Perspectives

What is public art? The answer is multifaceted. Public art encompasses a wide variety of creative expressions in the public realm. Public art can be a giant red sculpture that spells the word ART and straddles a street on an arts campus, a professionally designed mural three stories high, a limestone sculpture in the shape of a sofa on a city sidewalk for anyone to use, or large-scale sculptures in an expanse of green space depicting a field of corn . Public art can be almost anything—and it doesn’t require the price of admission or even a trip outside of your own neighborhood.

Public art can make us stop and open our eyes. It can refresh our perspectives by transforming a city’s public spaces, putting us in a position of making new discoveries rather than simply passing through them each day. The experience of viewing public art is dynamic and the relationship between the work and its site, its audience and other contextual factors all contribute to its impact.

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